


How Guillermo Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Camera

by Redrikki



Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: Gen, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:53:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28063488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/pseuds/Redrikki
Summary: Making a documentary film about their lives is a terrible idea, right up until it isn't.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 37
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	How Guillermo Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Camera

**Author's Note:**

  * For [longwhitecoats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/longwhitecoats/gifts).



> I started watching this show because of you, so thanks for that.

This was a terrible idea.

“This is a splendid idea!” Nadja said because of course she did. Sometimes Guillermo forgot that he was the only one in the house with any god damn sense. 

When Nandor had herded them all into the library for a house meeting about the documentary crew who wanted to film them, Guillermo had been so sure Nadja and Laszlo would shoot him down, if only to piss him off. So much for that. Well, now they’d be stuck doing it for sure. Laszlo as his last hope was no hope at all. 

“Splendid idea indeed,” Laszlo agreed, patting his wife’s knee. “Once the humans see how cool we are, they’ll be lining up to be eaten.”

Guillermo closed his eyes against his rising headache. Nandor wasn’t exactly Armand and Laszlo was a pretty far cry from Lestat. It would take more than a documentary film crew to make the vampires in this house look cool. And that wasn’t even the worst part. No one actually had pitchforks anymore, but there was no way a movie where they casually ate people wasn’t going to end with a pile of dead vampires.

“Knock, knock,” Colin Robinson said, pushing open the door and drawing drawing groans from the other vampires. Guillermo could already feel his energy draining away and he’d barely said anything. “Are we having a house meeting? Did you forget to invite me again?”

“No, of course we didn’t forget you, Colin Robinson,” Nandor lied with an awkward little laugh as he gestured the energy vampire to a free chair. “We were just discussing whether or not to participate in a documentary.”

“I see,” Colin Robinson said, his lips twitching in a poorly suppressed smirk as he took his seat. He looked from one face to another. “And you all seriously think this a good idea?” Guillermo might have thought he had an ally if he couldn’t hear the glee in Colin Robinson’s voice.

“Of course,” Laszlo said.

Guillermo cleared his throat, instantly drawing everyone’s attention to where he stood in the back of the room. “I don’t,” he muttered. 

“Oh, Gizmo doesn’t count.” Nadja waved away his objection as she turned back toward Nandor. 

“It’s Guillermo, actually.” Almost ten years and they still couldn't remember his name. He took a deep breath and forced his hands to unclench. Getting angry never helped. “Master,” he tried appealing to Nandor, “I just don’t think having photographic evidence of all your murders is a good idea. What if the police try to arrest you?”

“Murder. Ha!” Nandor scoffed. “Is it murder for a human to eat a cow? Are the cows coming for you now?”

“Hm, that seems hilarious, but unlikely,” Colin Robinson said with a shrug. “On the other hand, there’s a real case for Guillermo being an accessory to murder. Human murder, not cow murder. Not to mention kidnapping, improper disposal of human remains, conspiracy to commit murder,” he counted the charges off on his fingers, “and probably a bunch of other stuff.”

Guillermo’s chest tightened as his breath caught. He’d just been worried for the vampires, but this was so much worse. Colin Robinson’s smirk grew wider. 

“Yes, thank you Colin Robinson,” Nandor ignored him with a roll of his eyes. “So we are all in agreement then? Yes? We will participate in this film?” 

He was met with a chorus of ayes. Guillermo didn’t join in, but it hardly mattered. He was just the human familiar who might go down for their murders. No one cared what he thought.

* * *

The whole household stood in the main hall and watched as the film crew hauled in big cameras, little cameras, boom mics, and some kind of lighting rig. They were really doing this, really airing their whole, murderous dirty laundry for the world to see. Guillermo tried to blend in with the wallpaper. He kind of felt like throwing up.

“So,” Nandor said, eyeing the nearest camera warily, “we’re not supposed to look at the camera except when we _are_ supposed to look at the camera?”

“You look at the camera during the interviews,” Jermaine the director explained with far more patience than Guillermo could have mustered after the tenth variation of the exact same question. “The rest of the time, you just pretend it isn’t there and go about your daily life.”

Jermaine the director was an ambiguously brown man in his mid-forties with an accent from down under. The rest of the eight-man film crew were young locals fresh out of film school or wherever white boys went to learn to make documentaries. It was going to be weird having humans around that he wasn’t expected to bury later. What would they think of him? Was he supposed to look after them too? Where were they going to sleep? They were not sharing his little nest under the stairs. There was barely enough room there for him.

“And why, exactly, are we being interviewed again?” Colin Robinson asked. That one was a repetition too, but he was clearly trying to stir something up. 

“So we can get everyone’s perspective.”

“Right, right. Good, good, but surely you don’t want _everyone’s_ perspective,” Laszlo jerked his head meaningfully in Guillermo’s direction. “Come on, old chum, who’s the _main_ character? The, ah, hero, if you will?” He straightened his vest and puffed out his chest in what he probably thought was a heroic pose. Guillermo resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Nadja said, pointedly primping her hair. 

“Of course it is,” agreed Nandor, raising his chin. “I ruled a country after all.”

Guillermo managed to catch Jermaine’s eye and exchange a look. Nandor may have ruled a country and been the vampire Jermaine had approached, but, if his years of watching _The Office_ had taught Guillermo anything, there were no heroes in documentaries where all the subjects were idiots. Thank god he was basically wallpaper in this house. Who would want to film that?

“Everyone is the hero in their own story,” Jermaine said placatingly. “We’ll just see who ends up the hero in ours.”

Well, they’d all be trying to out do each other for sure now. It was going to be ridiculous and probably messy. He wasn’t looking forward to cleaning up after that. Guillermo turned away with a sigh. Well, the laundry wasn’t going to do itself. Whoever Jermaine’s hero was going to be, it clearly wasn’t going to be him.

* * *

Guillermo was polishing Nandor’s shoes in the library when Jermaine tracked him down. “Um, why are you filming me?” Guillermo glanced nervously at the camera. They weren’t supposed to look at it, right? Or was this was this an interview now? And, if it was, why? “I mean, you’re here to film vampires and I’m not a vampire.” 

“No, but familiars are an integral part of any vampiric household. Can you tell me a bit about what you do here?” Jermaine asked and shoved the camera right in Guillermo’s face. 

Looking into the lens was like gazing into the abyss. It was hungry and it looked back. Guillermo licked his lips. “Well, ah, as Nandor’s familiar, I look after his clothes,” he raised the boot to demonstrate. Jermaine gestured for him to continue. “I clean the house: dust, vacuum, get rid of bodies, that sort of stuff. I do the shopping, and find them virgins. Vampires really like virgins. Is that, okay?” He glanced nervously at the sound tech looming nearby with the boom mic. “Is that enough?”

“Yeah, Guillermo that’s great.” Jermaine said. “It is Guillermo, right? Not Gizmo.”

“No, it-it’s Guillermo.”

“Well, Guillermo, it sounds like you do a lot.”

Guillermo shrugged uncomfortably. “Yeah, I guess,” he said with an awkward laugh. It was pretty standard familiar stuff, but it did sound like a lot when he listed it all at once. 

“Alright, one last question and I’ll let you get back to work. Do you think Nandor appreciates everything you do?”

Appreciate it? Guillermo opened and closed his mouth uselessly like a landed fish. He wanted to say yes, but he was pretty sure the answer was no.

* * *

“Oh my god,” Jermaine moaned, his eyelids fluttering as he swallowed his first forkful of Guillermo’s tres leches chocolate birthday cake. 

“I told you I was a great baker,” Guillermo said with a shy smile. It was just so nice to be appreciated sometimes and he really did enjoy baking. It was a way better inheritance than vampire slaying. 

The whole film crew was crowded into the tiny, cramped kitchen to celebrate Steve the sound guy’s birthday and the fact that, unlike the man he’d replaced, he had actually lived long enough to celebrate it. Guillermo was glad, and not just because Steve was an alright kind of guy. It had been ages since he’d baked anything. There was just no point when he was the only one in the house who could eat. Having other humans around really made an unexpectedly nice change.

“Where are you, Guillermo?” Nandor called from down the hall.

So much for their nice little break. “In the kitchen, master,” Guillermo yelled back.

“We have a kitchen?” Nandor blundered into the room. “Oh, here you are.” He ducked back out into the hall. “I found the humans. They’re—” He turned back around and frowned as he took in the cake and party hats. “What are you doing?”

“We’re celebrating, master. It’s Steve the sound guy’s birthday.”

“Oh. Happy birthday, Steve the sound guy.” Nandor leaned forward to study Steve’s cake. “What are you eating?” He wrinkled his nose. “Why is it brown? It looks like shit. Guillermo, why are you making him eat shit?”

Guillermo winced. He should be used to these petty slights by now, but that one hurt. “It’s chocolate cake, master. It’s my mother’s recipe.” Chocolate, cinnamon, and chili powder, all soaked in the traditional three-milk blend. It was taste of all his childhood birthdays and every happy occasion. Trust a vampire to shit all over it. 

“Chocolate,” Nandor repeated, slowly sounding out the word like he’d never heard it before. “I didn’t realize it would be so…brown.”

“Oh, wow,” said Steve. “I guess you already would have been a vampire by the time it made it to Europe.”

Guillermo cleared his throat. “Did you need something, master?”

“Hm, yes, nothing pressing.” Nandor turned to leave. “Come find me when you’re done with your chocolate shit cake,” he said and swept out.

“You have look on your face.” Jermaine set his cake down and reached for his camera. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

The camera’s lens was friendly and inviting. How many times had they done this over the last year? The first few interviews had felt like getting teeth pulled, only more awkward. Now sharing his inner most thoughts the minute someone shoved a camera in his face was practically second nature. It felt nice, like being seen. 

Guillermo looked down at his cake. It seemed different now. Not like shit, but more precious somehow. Nandor had lived hundreds of years, but he’d never had it and he never would. That was kind of sad, actually, and he didn’t even know what he was missing. 

“I know vampires eat people, but, like, I guess I just never thought about all the stuff that they don’t eat. If I became a vampire tomorrow, this would be the last time I have cake. It really puts things in perspective. Like, yeah, vampires are cool. They’re immortal and they can fly and hypnotize people, but they miss out on all the small stuff that actually makes life enjoyable. Kind of makes you wonder if—” 

He broke off so he didn’t have to say it. Saying it would be like admitting defeat. The truth was, it wasn’t just the cake. It was the respect and camaraderie of fellow humans, the chance to really be seen and heard, and the mounting pile of evidence that vampires just as pathetic and miserable as he was. _All_ of it made him wonder if any of the last eleven years was worth it.

* * *

Guillermo packed up his belongings for the second time in as many months. He wasn’t even angry this time, just done. The camera tracked his movements as he laid out the letter for Nandor. “This is all your fault, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Introspection is a lot easier when there’s a camera pointed at you.”

It wasn’t even just the interviews. They weren’t supposed to, but Guillermo spent a lot of time looking into the camera like Jim in _The Office_. He couldn’t help it. It wasn’t nervousness; it was confirmation. Each glance at the camera held the same question. _You see that too, right? It’s not just me?_ Every time he looked, the camera said yes.

“For years, it was so easy to just to pretend that this,” Guillermo gestured to his sad excuse for a bedroom, “was normal. You tell yourself that recruiting unsuspecting virgins is normal, disposing of bodies is normal, getting treated like crap is normal, but it’s not. None of this is normal. I’m a vampire killer who wants to be a vampire. That’s insane! I can’t do it any more.” 

“Where will you go?” 

“To my mom’s.” That wasn't any more humiliating than living here. He may not have a job or a resume, but he had some money from the deal with the witches and he was pretty sure he could patent his heavy duty blood removal stick. That was kind of like having a plan. Everything would be okay or at least involve fewer vampire assassins. He swung his bag over his shoulder and took one last, long look over what had been his home. “It’s time to be the hero of my own story.” 

Guillermo walked out the door and a camera crew followed him.

* * *

This was not how Guillermo had planned on spending his night. He hadn’t even gotten the mini-fridge and now he was covered in blood. Everything was covered in blood. It dripped down the seats and onto the floor from the vampires he’d killed. Nandor and the others were safe, that was the important thing. Guillermo clutched his stake and struggled to catch his breath. He’d just killed a theater of vampires and holy crap did it feel good. 

“Guillermo,” Nandor called from where he and the others were still tied up on the stage, “is there something you haven't been telling us?”

Yeah, there was. He raised his chin. “My name is Guillermo de la Cruz.” Maybe now they'd remember it.

Nandor started yammering something about laundry, but Guillermo didn’t care. The eye of the camera was on him. Under its gaze, he wasn’t just the hero of his own story. He was the hero period.

**Author's Note:**

> Chocolate tres leches cake for your eating enjoyment: https://www.greensnchocolate.com/mexican-chocolate-tres-leches-cake/


End file.
